For all the glitter and ridiculous excess of Southern California, there remains something alluring about its films, it sunshine, its beaches, and its music.  More than anything, though, it is the sound of the place, its music, that evokes its sense of place, at least for an outsider like me. The first chords of "Wouldn't It Be Nice," off the great Pet Sounds, will take me there, as will the Seventies-soft-rock vibe of "Ventura Highway, America's hit 1972 single.  Now, Jeff Larson transports me with the effervescent pop of his new release, Heart of the Valley --- eleven songs that are pure joy to hear and which unabashedly draw on the mid-Seventies sound of America and groups of similar ilk.  I'm smitten.

Nary a twit of angst, world-weariness, or political rant will you find on this selection of songs.  While the melodies, Larson's silky voice, and writing, production, and playing of collaborator Garry Beckley are what immediately summon you, folkster that I am, it's the lyrics --- many penned by Beckley, but some standouts co-written or written by Larson --- that take me deeper and hold me. The "beloved" 405, the San Diego Freeway that snakes through the West LA area, one of the most-traveled and congested freeways in the world, an impressionistic picture of which adorns the cover of the CD, serves as an apt metaphor for the life swirling around the songs here.  The 405 is an experience common to those in Southern California, no matter what the background or socio-economic status.  In its shadow are blighted commercial areas as well as luxurious residential enclaves.  So it forms a common experience of movement and travel informed by hopes and dreams, all keywords to the songs found here.

Begin with the title cut, "Heart of the Valley," which tells us that "right through the middle/ on the 405/ you start to believe it/ as you come alive."  It's  song that calls us to "remember" a time when "time didn't matter" and asks us to "dream" and "hope" and "imagine."  It's a ballad that really is the heart of the record, a kind of wistful nostalgia intertwined with hopeful expectancy.  (It also has a beautiful vocal outro by Jeffrey Foskett.) The theme of movement and travel is carried on through "Sudden Soldier," where the narrator is in an airport watching soldiers en route to war, "the same old story/ for hope and glory," and in the hymn-like interlude, "Airport Smiles." It pops up later in "Calling" ("Time is a commodity/ that always gets away from me/ the counting off the days with nothing left to say") and "One Way Ticket" ("I've got no way to reach her/ and I'm out of time").

In spite of the wistfulness of some of the songs, the lyrics evince a hopefulness, a sense of promise, buoyed by jangly guitars, major chords, and percussion, as in the delightful "Minus Marci, with the belief that "loves been here all along/ smiling from the wings" or the faith and sense of commitment contained in "every drop of faith/ is part of the plan/ every step I take/ on every grain of sand/ there's no doubt/ we'll work it out."  The closer, "One Lit Window," co-penned by Larson and Beckley, is my favorite, embodying a longing and sense of loss, something we can all identify with ("One lit window on the street tonight - is anyone home?") with hope and forward-looking commitment ("I'm hoping to mend the tear. . . . at least I'm trying.")  That light in the window becomes an image of hope, and just as the image of the lit window lies under the disc in the CD case, so hope underlies all these songs, whether in their lyrics or in their summery sound.  It makes the album a standout, given that there's so precious little of that quality in most music today.

I recommend Heart of the Valley.  Its shimmering sound and buoyant hope will lift you out of the dark and cold and right onto the 405, smack in the metaphoric heart of where dreams and hopes can come true. That's not, by the way, Southern California.